


Come and find your kind

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age Difference, Alternate Canon, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Actors, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Romance, Blowjobs, Boss/Employee Relationship, Bottom Peter Parker, Cabin Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Celebrity Crush, College Student Peter Parker, First Time Bottoming, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, In the Beginning, Iron Man Isn't A Real Superhero, M/M, Nightmares, Personal Assistant Peter Parker, Peter Parker Acting As Tony Stark's Mentor, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Pretty Fluffy In Places ngl, References to Canon, Role Reversal, Service Top, Sharing a Bed, Some Humor, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Top Tony Stark, superhero angst, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27963332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: COMPLETE.When Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man finds out that some bozo is flying around Manhattan in an armor fashioned to look like Iron Man--you know, the hero from the popular Avengers movie franchise?--he thinks first that they must be a huge nerd. Then it occurs to him that they might be in over their heads. Then it occurs to him that they might be evil.Thinking on his feet and seizing the opportunity when that franchise turns out to be filming on location, Peter poses as a PA to get to the actor who plays Iron Man himself, Tony Stark. Tony might just be the person to help him take down the guy trying to steal his thunder, if the actor's legendary ego can be counted on. That's the thing, though... Peter's not sure what of Tony Stark hecancount on, and what he can't. Everyone has a secret, and his senses tell him that Stark in particular has a big one.(And there's a joke in there somewhere...)On that note, as if that's not enough,Peter'ssecret happens to be that he finds this particular A-lister, the one who just became his sorta boss and co-conspirator, very attractive. Like, really really really hot and smart.Shenanigans ensue.aka: Role reversal, the fic.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 19
Kudos: 86





	Come and find your kind

**Author's Note:**

> The playlist for this work can be found [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0oSc9kuGITxX4i4XtD5n6o?si=mEC8bhjSTvCL0qN-GkCtSg).

Fall:

The first time Peter meets Tony Stark, he’s almost almost-ten and has had far too much sugar to be able to wait patiently in the line at the Disney Expo, especially not once Uncle Ben explains that what they’re waiting in line for is for The Avengers to sign their names all over the brand new stuff they’ve just bought.

In what world does that make sense? Yeah, sure, The Avengers movies are pretty cool—even though Peter prefers the novelizations, because then he can imagine his own scenes in between the chapter breaks—but that doesn’t mean he needs a bunch of actors to sign his brand new Iron Man helmet. That’s dumb. Superheroes aren’t real, and Peter knows the difference between TV and real life, no matter what the 'based on a true story' marker says before every film. Just because they use the shaky cameras to film _The Avengers,_ just like with the _Paranormal Activity_ movie that Peter wasn't supposed to have been allowed to watch, doesn't mean it's anything but fake. 

The second time Peter meets Tony Stark, he’s twenty-one and superheroes _are_ real. 

Peter knows because he is one.

***

Winter:

 _Avengers: Secret Wars_ is filming on location in midtown Manhattan and Peter knows that on the first day, it’s going to be a complete logistical nightmare. It’s a simple thing to web over and then, sans suit, parlay his own wind-blown appearance and his cup carrier prop—filled with four empty to-go coffees—into getting on the taped-off set of city blocks they’re using. The security guy barely looks at the press badge Peter has swiped off the desk of his coworker, the entertainment reporter, down at _The Daily Bugle._

Once he’s in, Peter pockets the thing anyway, preferring to be mistaken for a PA or something. It’s easier to get back to the trailers that way, and Peter makes a beeline straight for the one marked ‘Tony Stark’.

It’s easy to pick out because it has its own little 4’ by 4’ bit of astroturf with a tiny table under an even tinier awning. And the door has a cheap-looking flamingo ornament mounted to it, with a cigar in its mouth. Peter resists the urge to roll his eyes. This Stark guy thinks highly of himself, he guesses.

 _That’s good, though,_ he reminds himself. _That’s what I’m counting on._

What Peter’s _not_ counting on, however, is the relieved, desperate look that the corporate heir-turned-actor-turned-investor-turned-junkie-turned-actor-turned-philanthropist that _is_ Tony Stark gives him when he sees Peter.

“Oh god, coffee, give it _to_ me, kid, attaboy,” is what Mr. Stark says, and Peter obeys without thinking, thrusting forward the drink carrier across the relatively scant space of the trailer. Of course, because the cups are empty, the way Mr. Stark grabs for one is a complete miscalculation, and it upsets the balance of the thing in Peter’s hand.

Cups go bouncing and rolling hollowly against the floor and Mr. Stark’s frown deepens with both caffeine-related disappointment and dawning discomfort at the reality of the situation. Before Peter knows it, he’s on his knees apologizing.

“I’m so sorry, this isn’t what it looks like, I know what you must be thinking,” Peter starts rambling, even as he grabs for the scattered cups. He’s so _stupid_ , what was the plan here? This whole thing is a disaster; the least he can do is not leave trash all over the famous guy’s trailer, Jesus Christ.

But Peter’s senses send shivers over his whole body as he feels Mr. Stark’s gaze land on him, taking him in.

“You really ought to consider more carefully what it looks like, and what I might be thinking before you keep talking,” the older man advises him. He’s still looking Peter up and down, though, it’s uh… 

_Mostly down. From this position,_ Peter notes to himself. Whatever. It’s not _that_ compromising. He finally finds the fourth cup near Stark’s shoe collection and scrambles back to his feet. But Peter is still struggling with how to broach the subject of his breaking and entering, or trespassing, or what-have-you.

“You a fan?”

 _No._ “Yeah, I…” _Not for years. Even though I have the poster still._ “I just really wanted to talk to you, sir. It’s important. There’s this thing that’s been happening-”

“Hey, it’s okay, kid. What’s your name? I like to know your names before we get to the ‘coming out’ part.”

 _I- what?_ “No, no, that’s not. I mean, _yeah_ , but-” The cardboard of the drink carrier crushes in on itself a little in Peter’s grip. “I mean, yeah, I like men but this is about fighting crime, sir. I have to protect people.”

Mr. Stark sits back a little like he’s surprised, and the air in the trailer shifts even as Peter gets the tingle and the stood-up arm hairs that mean the way Stark is going for the letter opener that’s sitting there on his wardrobe counter is very _no bueno_.

Peter breathes and then moves and has it before Stark’s done much more than shift his weight.

“Look, if you’re gonna kill me or something, can I at least have a real coffee first? This is a really bad spot anyway… people definitely saw you come in here,” Mr. Stark informs him.

 _Kill you?_ “I’m not gonna _kill you_ , oh my god, you’re Tony Stark, no!” _Jesus._ “Why would anyone wanna kill an actor? Kidnap or mugging is more likely-”

The frown is back again. “Well, _yeah_ , but sometimes when I open with the coming-out speech, things get ugly quick, okay? I don’t know your life. Look, let’s just start it from the top. Action. What’s your deal, what’s your motivation, what’re you here for? Autograph? Selfie?”

 _God, this was such a bad idea_. Peter tries not to grind his teeth; his Aunt May really hates that he does that. “No, I’m here because there’s a guy flying around in an Iron Man armor most nights, patrolling Manhattan and parts of Queens and Brooklyn, and he’s going to get himself killed. You’ve got money, and I really don’t think you want Disney pulling the plug on your franchise when they find out the guy is some ex-military wingnut, so…” Peter flips the letter opener end-over-end in the air, catching it smoothly each time.

“So what? I’m just the pretty face. It’s all mo-cap, trust me, which is why I’m in this trailer waiting on Makeup, who should have been in here five minutes ago. They’re probably standing outside, staring down Bob, trying to give us some privacy before I send you on your way with some baby wipes and a fond memory.”

Now it’s Peter’s turn to frown. There’s a lot to unpack there. “Who’s Bob?”

“The flamingo, keep up.”

 _And what are the baby-_ “Oh my god, shut _up._ ”

“Be more interesting then, kid, so I don’t have to be.”

Peter gingerly transfers the mangled cardboard, cups, and lids to his left hand, purely so he can pinch the bridge of his nose with his right. He breathes deep and thinks about his options here.

It's gonna take something big to entice Tony Stark out of his complacent celebrity long enough to help Peter out. Peter sighs.

“Okay, fine. I’m Spider-Man. Happy?”

The look that Stark gives him is really something else. “That’ll do it.”

***

The next time they meet, Stark is sporting these huge, ridiculous sunglasses that make him look like he’s the one with arthropod DNA, not Peter. It’s possible they’d be _more_ covert without them. The ballcap is a little much, as well, but at least he’s there on time and not a total diva about it.

Peter is willing to count his blessings. 

“Okay, so… what’s the plan here, spiderling?” Tony says in a dropped whisper.

“Can you not.” Peter sips blandly at his iced coffee. He tries not to look like he’s up to something in this freaking Starbucks. One of them has to.

 _“Fine._ ”

Peter puts his cup down, and slides his phone towards the middle of the table so Tony can see. He’s calling him ‘Tony’ now. No one that ridiculous gets an honorific, age be damned.

He shows Tony the dots scattered across a zoomed-in map of the central boroughs. “These are the locations of the Fake Iron Man sightings. This is where you need to deploy your private security people; I can, uh, I can send you the information to pass along to them. If you give me your number, sir.”

Tony looks up at him appraisingly. This much, Peter can tell, even with the sunglasses. Also, _damn._ He called him ‘sir’ again.

“Where’d you get this info?”

“Reddit.”

“Read it _where_?”

 _Ohmygodhe’ssoold._ “Uh, on a website.”

Tony slides the phone back toward him, and Peter reaches out the rest of the way to swipe it back towards himself protectively. This is his third one this semester; his spider-suit doesn’t really have _pockets._

(Zippers are hard to sew, okay? And hot glue just cracks at cold, skyscraper-level altitudes-)

“I’m gonna level with you, Parker,” ~~Mr. Stark~~ Tony is saying. “You’re the one with the…” He glances around. “You’re the one with the _abilities_. It’s gonna have to be you who stops this _pretender to the throne_ , not my guys, no matter how much I shell out for them. So how are you gonna do that? I need to know. And don’t tell me it’s really gonna involve a _scatter-plot_ you found online.”

Peter chews on his lip. He’s thought about this, but it’s gonna be hard to explain to a civilian. “Well, I can incapacitate him temporarily, no problem. I might not look like much in my sweats on the news, but the uh… formula that I use is higher-tech than you might think. I can make it thermal-proof, jam up the repulsors. Ground him. Then we can talk.”

Tony’s look only becomes more intense, and he leans forward. Peter has the presence of mind to quit biting at his own mouth like a moron. “Talk?” Tony repeats. “About?”

“About why he’s doing this,” Peter answers instantly. It’s obvious to him. “I think I can tell the good kind from the bad kind. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I think that it’ll be clear real fast whether he’s in this for the glory or the other stuff. The good stuff. You know?”

“Not really, no,” Tony replies, eyebrow quirking, but Peter’s sharp eyesight catches the way the actor’s head bobs in a minuscule nod. “I’m still confused as to what you need from me. It sounds like you got it handled.”

“Information, mostly,” Peter says cleanly, with a little shrug. “Iron Man is _you_ , not this guy. And I’m willing to bet that the kind of nerd who goes through all the trouble to become a superhero, but doesn’t come up with his own name or look? He’s gotta be a _super_ fan. It’s no accident, the timing with the movie, either. It may even be someone close to you, someone working on the set, if he injected himself into your orbit.”

“You mean like you?”

“Well, sure,” Peter huffs. “But we already know I’m one of the good guys. I want you to see if you can get a read on anyone, and gather information through your team, just in case we’re dealing with a real psycho here. The line between hero and villain is pretty thin, being totally honest.”

And Tony finally deigns to take a sip of his hot coffee at that. “Yeah, I can see that, I guess. Whoever this guy is, I hope he doesn’t come knocking on my door asking for tips. I wouldn’t know how to play the hero in the real world, not even to save my own life.”

Peter mulls that over. “Well, it’s usually someone else’s life.”

“Even worse.”

***

The next time they’re supposed to meet, Tony gets called in for emergency reshoots, because his co-star, Steve, couldn’t be damned to shave his beard for a movie that is costing almost half a _billion_ dollars to make. It was supposed to be painted out in CGI, but some of the shots weren’t working for that so Tony and the whole team of actors in that spate of scenes are needed when they were supposed to be having their break before production moves back off-location to the studio.

Tony’s not pleased, is the long and short of it. Which means Peter has to hear about it.

“I mean, yeah, _of course_ he looks better with the beard. That’s not the issue. I like the beard and I think they should have kept it in the movie. So what if he’s gonna go back and get his supposed dream girl in the end and settle down for an ever after of heterosexual bliss? There can’t be _two_ beards in the movie, one literal and one figurative? I don’t get it.”

Peter, for his part, is masquerading as Tony’s assistant again, so he feels strongly that his put-upon expression, while _completely genuine,_ also fits the bill. “So what you’re saying is he _shouldn’t_ shave. Which he didn’t? But you’re still mad?”

“I’m saying it didn’t have to be a big deal _in-narrative_ for him to shave. I mean, the Avengers have bigger problems, it didn’t need to be a whole thing. Just like they make Nat change her hair every movie, probably to sell toys since they’re, you know, not gonna make her suit any more tactical or give her a big set-piece or plot point important enough to justify a new mini-fig box.”

Peter hums. He’s focused on this catering list. Tony has insisted on hosting some sort of big tent luncheon thing since everyone is getting called in from their breaks to do these scenes. He’s like the Godfather, but without all the murder.

“But,” Tony continues railing, “ _if_ the powers that be have decided Captain America has to shave in this movie, couldn’t Steve just _do it_? I mean, we’re getting paid a lot of money. Other entertainers and athletes and stuff that get paid like this, they put their bodies through hell playing or touring or what have you. And he can’t _shave_? It’ll grow back. Lordy.”

“Right,” says Peter, considering more canapés.

“Hey, don’t. Don’t do that.”

Peter looks up. “Don’t agree with you?”

“Not if you don’t mean it,” Tony explains, looking uncomfortable. “Anyway, my point is that he could give a hoot about the fact that it’s hard enough getting a major motion picture to come together, especially such a huge crossover event for like, an entire cinematic…”

“Multiverse?” Peter offers.

“Yeah, _that._ It’s hard enough getting every single detail together and there are _thousands_ of people working on this film, and he’s getting paid more than _most of them put together_ , and he can’t just shave? All those different parties coming together and he can’t, I dunno, come to an _accord_ about his facial hair? For seventy-five million dollars?”

Peter puts down the catering list. “With great privilege comes great responsibility,” Peter says semi-solemnly. He doesn’t actually think this is that big of a deal, comparatively speaking, but he gets that to Tony it is. Not everyone is a superhero or thinks on that scale. This is Tony’s life, his craft, and it’s important to him so Peter can try not to be a dismissive ass about it.

_I do need to try to keep him on track, though._

But when Peter finishes pulling out and unlocking his phone, determined to bring up the latest Fake Iron Man sighting, he finds Tony’s still looking at him. And there’s not a dismissive thing about the way he’s doing it, either.

“Where’d you hear that one?” he asks quietly.

“Something my Uncle Ben used to say,” Peter mumbles. “My dad too, I think. Don’t remember. I think maybe their dad said it.”

There’s quiet for a moment, then, “They passed away?”

“Yeah,” Peter answers, pushing back a wave of hair. His face is hot for some reason. “What, did you Google me?”

“S’better than Googling myself, I assure you. Also, _no._ You just had The Look about you. Why, is what happened… Googleable?”

Peter very carefully texts out the invite to the cast luncheon from Tony’s phone. “I don’t want to talk about it. So anyway, you’re all set for tonight, assuming reshoots wrap up on time. If, for some reason, they don’t? Then I have backup reservations set up at Olmsted in Brooklyn; I name-dropped Steve instead of you so that if word got out the paparazzi would know to leave well enough alone.”

“Smart. They leave him be since the time he punched that one German photog with the funny mustache.”

It takes everything Peter has to not flush under praise. It’s one of his really bad habits. “Thanks. Enjoy your evening, sir.” He hands the other man’s really, really, _really_ expensive phone back carefully.

“Wait, you’re not coming?”

“To the… dinner? No, I was gonna stake out the hotel. I finally figured it out, well me and Ned did. Whoever Fake Iron Man is, he's operating out of hotel rooms with penthouse or rooftop balconies every night. It's clear he doesn't want to draw attention to his home and he needs someplace to take off from. But guess what? Ned figured out he's been going in order of the TripAdvisor top 50 hotels of New York list. Wild!"

Tony looks at Peter like he's got two heads. "What kind of dumbass- no, don't answer that. Are you _sure_? I mean, you think you know where he'll be tonight, but what if he's not there?"

It can't be helped; Peter's shoulders slump a little at that thought. "I dunno, sir. This is the first and only lead we've really had. Otherwise, it's too hard for me to reach him before he gets too high in the sky to where I can't web any higher or get closer. I _have_ to catch him staying closer to the ground."

"A friendly, neighborhood Iron Man.”

Peter tries not to laugh. “Something like that. It would be safer for the poor guy anyway. Let the military deal with any ‘Avengers-level’ threats,” he says, with air-quotes and everything.

It’s only by a trick of the light that Peter catches the flash of Tony’s grin; it’s a real one, nothing like the movie-star, megawatt press smile. But then again, Peter never knows what to trust of Tony Stark’s face. The man _is_ an actor, after all.

What he says, though, is, “I thought you didn’t watch my movies, Parker. ‘Not a fan’, and all that. Now you’re quoting lines?”

And Peter feels every rounded ‘r’ of his last name dropping from Tony’s mouth like he’s impressed with him, like _Tony_ is flattered by _him._ Quickly, he scrambles for a comeback, caught off guard by the zinging feeling. “Well, not everyone has a franchise to fall back on,” he sounds out, watching raptly as Tony’s eyes spark back in interest. “Some of us have to be good at our jobs, can’t just dial it in, you know? Same shit, different sequel.”

“Fuck you,” Tony returns, without heat. He crosses his arms, leaning back, phone lying forgotten on the table to his side. “In this political climate, they’re obsessed with Steve’s character. I have to claw for every non-asshole line I can. The squares love Cap for his apple pie routine and the queer kids love him for the Winter Soldier storyline, and all I get are the ones with daddy issues.”

Peter covers his mouth with his hand and keeps his own counsel, though he’s sure his expression tells the whole tale.

“God, you’re such a brat, _you know that._ I’ve seen you, kid, with that camera, asking so pretty and polite before you take any candids, as if you haven’t been dropped honest-to-god into a pack of narcissists who will pose for a traffic cam.”

“So?”

“So, you’re watching reshoots like a hawk. You gotta be a secret fan, I mean, you’re young and you don’t live under a rock, so…”

“I work three jobs, so I kinda do. You think I have time for a twenty-five-movie franchise in between _the Bugle,_ Spider-Man, and you?”

The next smile is even quicker, blink and you’ll miss it, but it sends Peter’s blood pumping through his veins all the same, due south. “So you _do_ know how many films there are. Gotcha.”

And Peter knows he’s caught, is the worst thing. He knows what Tony wants him to say. He knows he could smile awkwardly and look out the small trailer window, say something earnest about being a bigger fan of all the people—the _real_ people—he’s met on set these past few weeks, than he ever was of the fictional Avengers. It wouldn't even be a lie. 

And Tony would like that. He’d probably say something like, ‘but I’m your favorite, right, kid?’ and Peter would give up and tell him ‘yes, of course you are, sir’ and then Tony would probably take him to a hotel. A really nice hotel.

It’s been months and months since Michelle left him for the campaign job in California, for the last time, their on-again, off-again now turned to an off-forever. It would be really nice, Peter thinks, to be touched by someone a) not his Aunt May, and b) not trying to kill him.

“Hey,” Tony says softly, recapturing Peter’s attention. “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you. I wasn’t- well, I mean, I _was_ teasing you, but not to be- not like that. You can be a fan, if you are one, or not. It doesn’t matter to me. Relax about it.”

“I’m relaxed,” Peter insists, but it comes out as not much more than a murmur. It would be so easy, to say the right thing here. He’s only been Tony’s assistant for a few weeks, but he finds he’s naturally attuned to what the older man wants; either that, or Tony’s been babying him, playing with his shiny new toy.

It bothers Peter that it could be either, and he’d never know the difference. His senses tell him constantly that there’s something of artifice to Tony Stark, something held back. And Peter can see it well enough, trained as he is in sussing out the bad seeds of this city. 

Tony Stark is a lie just waiting to be told.

Peter can wonder all damn day and night what it might be like, to wear the mask of Precious Peter Parker, personal assistant to the stars—or one star in particular—but the truth is he has somewhere to be tonight, and it’s not in a hotel room getting his nipples tweaked until he begs to be rode hard and put away wet.

It would probably be great. He’s seen the sex tapes, like any healthy young queer dude under thirty-five. Peter Parker knows this for sure: Tony Stark _fucks._

But maybe, just maybe Peter’s done being lied to.

***

No one shows up to the place where Fake Iron Man’s supposed to be, even though Peter has picked what he knows to be the optimal rooftop to stake out. For six hours. In the drizzling rain.

Peter lies on his back in a puddle—not like it matters, he’s already drenched—and thinks idly about if the guy playing at Iron Man happens to be a good guy. Like, maybe they could work together sometimes. Not all the time, mind you. Peter likes his independence. But maybe they could go in on some stuff like Peter does with ‘Pool, occasionally.

Also, provided the guy really did make his own armor, as all of Peter’s research into different providers of black-market tech has indicated, maybe he can let Peter use his equipment to fashion something a little more… waterproof.

Just a thought.

When Peter’s wherewithal finally gives up the ghost, he swings idly through the city, focusing hard on not webbing to anything too slippery in the rain, and somehow finds himself in Brooklyn. Reshoots had, indeed, gone a little long, with production working around the rain for the exterior shots, and Peter knows the whole cast is warming themselves up with a toasty dinner at the restaurant Peter booked.

From his vantage point, he can see only two paparazzi hanging around. Word must have got out about ‘Steve’ making the reservation; these two are the only ones dumb enough to come here anyway.

It’s easy enough for Peter to catch their attention in his suit. Everyone loves a good snap of Spider-Man, and even though letting these guys get some good shots of him is going to mean Peter has a harder time selling his own pictures to _the Bugle_ tomorrow, it seems worth it, in that moment, to give Tony a little extra cover. Peter crouches, balancing, on the railing of the outdoor balcony area, which the restaurant has emptied out in deference to the weather, and throws up a peace sign for the paparazzi’s benefit.

A lone member of the serving staff, a young man, comes out and asks for a selfie with him, presumably on his break, and Peter talks to the guy for a few minutes since the rain has stopped for now. He worries, briefly, if the kid is about to get himself fired; it can be hard to tell sometimes, with fancy restaurants, which ones allow their staff to be actual humans at all, and which don’t.

But then Peter spots Tony watching them through a window, a meal and conversation going on seemingly unheard all around the other man, and Peter knows this kid won’t get fired. Tony would never let that happen. Peter knows Tony loves playing the hero too much; he does it enough in front of Peter that he can only imagine it’s even worse around his famous co-stars.

As soon as the server, Michael, goes back inside, Tony stands. It makes anticipation jump in Peter’s belly, but he swings away anyway, making a beeline (spiderline?) for a few blocks over where there’s a branch of the gym chain he has a membership to. It’s money Peter doesn’t have, really, but sometimes it’s worth it to be able to shower off the blood.

Fortunately, today it’s just rainwater and rooftop grit. Peter is in and out in under ten minutes, and he uses a locker to hold onto his stuff for now. Then he makes his way back toward the restaurant like he’s magnetized.

Peter walks the few blocks over, his windbreaker really too light for the chill the wind is carrying through the city. The lights lining the street are pleasant enough, and the rain has bathed the street and sidewalks until they are not, now, much more than a sparkling reflection of those same lights. It would be romantic, the way the other traffic noise is rather hushed against the sound of the water and wet leaves under tires. Peter would be enjoying the freshness of the air that the rain has left behind.

Except for how it’s fucking Brooklyn.

Aside from that, though, Peter does enjoy his little stroll, for all that he has to pull his collar up and wishes he had gloves. When he turns the corner, Peter is forced to take a cold, bracing breath in, because there, under an umbrella as oversized and unnecessary as his sunglasses, is Tony. He’s bundling his other cast members neatly into cabs, first Nat and Wanda and Clint, and then Thor and Bruce. Steve, Sam, and that guy Barnes look like they’re going to walk, and Tony has a smattering of people around that he’s autographing things for, most likely to give the other guys time to get away. 

Tony looks up just a few moments after Peter stops dead, there at the corner. He raises his umbrella at him, as if they’re clinking glasses, and Peter catches himself smiling even as Tony goes back to giving the fan he’s signing for his full attention. 

By the time Peter catches up, there are a few _more_ people gathering around, and not all of them look like fans. Some of them look like reporters. Peter pulls a pen and a small notepad from his inner pocket, numb fingers fumbling with the zip. He imagines that how flustered he looks only adds to the illusion as he approaches.

“Excuse me, sorry, but Mr. Stark has a commitment in Manhattan, we really must be going,” Peter puts in.

The set of Tony’s shoulders goes all grateful, at that, but he still takes a few more moments to take a selfie with a teenage girl who has been waiting patiently. She smiles and gives Tony the tiniest, most timid hug before blushing and stepping back towards a woman who is probably her mother.

After that, Peter gets Tony safely into the car that a driver has dropped off for their use, before having driven away in a second car himself with another man from the car service. Peter slides behind the wheel and knows instantly that this vehicle didn’t come from there; this, like him, belongs to Tony.

At least partially.

As it is, Peter isn’t aware of Mr. Stark having any permanent property in the city, so it’s a big question where they’re going. For his part, Peter is mostly still just surprised that he’s being allowed to drive.

“Did you drink too much? Also, where to?”

“I didn’t drink too much,” Tony tells him, even as he scrapes a heavy, luxury car-key fob into Peter’s palm. “Push to start. I just want you to be in control of this.”

The knowledge of what that means, what Tony could possibly be intending, saying something like that, zings through Peter. _I just want you to be in control of this._ Jesus Christ.

“Where to?” Peter repeats, looking straight ahead. His breath ghosts out in the chill of the car and he reaches forward for the ignition button at the same time as Tony. Tony’s index finger presses down on the nail of Peter’s own, and they start the car together.

Warmth blossoms, inside Peter and out, as the heat kicks on with a purr.

“We should at least feint toward Manhattan, probably,” Tony says gently, so they do.

Long moments of just driving pass, with Peter getting steadily more comfortable in the driver’s seat as they go. He so rarely has the opportunity to drive, period, much less a vehicle like this, through this part of the city. But with Tony next to him, letting him do this for him, Peter feels not unlike how he does under the Spider-Man mask. Confidence grows in him, knowing that someone is depending on him, trusting his competence.

“So how was the party?” Peter finally asks as he changes lanes, when it becomes clear that Tony means him to be in control of the conversation, as well.

“Boring,” Tony informs him. “But the restaurant was great. We were all just too tired, I think.”

“I knew the shoot would run over. I’ll call the caterer as soon as we’re stopped.”

“No need,” Tony says with a gentle smile that Peter looks away from the road just to see. “This is why we went for fancy box lunches. I have the security team handing them out to people who are homeless, downtown. I mean, it’s not like I needed them running around and messing up your stakeout, right? How’d that go?”

“No-show. Guess Fake Iron Man had a hot date.”

They go through several more minutes of silence, and Peter is just thinking about asking if Mr. Stark wants the radio on or not, when Tony asks him the question.

“Why do you call him ‘Fake’ Iron Man?”

Peter stops as they gridlock ahead of the exit. Just a handful more blocks until they turn off to head back towards filming and Tony’s tiny trailer, crowded as it is amongst the others in the parking garage near the actual set-up. Otherwise, if he stays on FDR, they’ll end up upstate.

“Because he’s not you. _You’re_ Iron Man. Think of it as a professional courtesy,” Peter explains mildly.

“How so?”

“It doesn’t matter that it’s a movie. Iron Man is your thing that you built up, to turn your life around and make things make sense. I, uh. I get that, is what I’m saying. And there’s a bunch of kids out there who feel safe with your poster on their wall at night, or your action figure in their backpack at school, when the bullies come. That means something.”

"I guess it does," says Tony, slowly. "It never seemed like it until now." Then he shifts in his seat like he's uncomfortable, and busies himself looking out at the East River, such as it is. 

Peter wonders if he's tired from shooting. "What exactly do you need from the trailer before I take you to your hotel? I can just run in and get it, it's fine, sir."

When Tony speaks, after a pause, he sounds surprised. Peter can't look away from the traffic in front of them because they're only maybe ten cars back from the exit, even at this crawling pace. But the way Tony says, "I don't need anything from the trailer,” serves to make Peter wonder just what Tony's plan is.

“It's just you said Manhattan before… to those people. Did you _want_ to go to a hotel?"

"Well if we're not going to your trailer and we're not going to a hotel, then where are we going?" Peter asks, bemused. He squeezes at the leather over the steering wheel, goosebumps breaking out over his arms. He can feel them under the swishy material of his jacket, even though he’s warm. _Did you_ ** _want_** _to go to a hotel?_ he repeats to himself, feeling out the nuance in Tony’s voice mentally. His spidey senses don’t fully trust Tony Stark yet, but that statement had been all pure intent.

(Well not _pure._ Clear, rather. Clear intent, but not pure, no.)

Peter licks his lips. “What would we do at a hotel, sir?”

"Whatever you want, sweetheart," comes the wolfish answer. In Peter's peripheral vision, he can see that Tony looks at him now, and not the East River. "Though that would be true anywhere," Tony adds. 

Peter inhales a shaky breath. He never does things like this, and he's sure that Tony must know that. He _must_ know. But then again, Peter never usually tells anyone that he's Spider-Man either, so maybe it doesn't matter what he usually does or doesn't do. 

He compulsively tightens and relaxes, tightens and relaxes his hands on the steering wheel. Then he takes one off to hover near the turn signal. "Which way?"

"Take the exit if you want to go through with the whole 'appointment in Manhattan' charade. Or to drop me at my hotel. Otherwise-" 

Peter interrupts, trying to plan even as his heart rate spikes, and asks, "Wait, where are you staying exactly?"

He's barely surprised when Tony gives the name of the hotel that Peter’s just spent most of his evening staking out. He tries not to react, tries not to spook Tony. Either Tony isn't involved, in which case it's not worth freaking him out, or he is, and Peter needs to play it cool.

"You were saying? Otherwise…" Peter prompts him. 

"Otherwise you can keep driving and I'll show you something really cool."

Peter keeps driving.

***

The something really cool turns out to be a mysterious location upstate that Tony gives Peter increasingly specific directions to, which Peter was definitely not expecting. Normally he absolutely would not be doing this kind of thing, going somewhere alone with someone he has reason to think is hiding something. In fact, when they stop for gasoline outside Poughkeepsie, Peter makes sure to text Ned, his guy in the chair, and turn on his phone tracker.

 _I'll text you in the next hour,_ he promises Ned.

 _Don't do anything I wouldn't do,_ his best friend texts back, and Peter grins at his phone. That doesn’t leave much, but Peter will take it.

"What's got you smiling, kid?" Tony asks him, coming back with two coffees. Peter dies a little inside, picturing spilling gas station cappuccino inside the Audi.

He leans against the car instead, taking the cup Tony offers him. "Just wondering if this was full or merely a prop," he jokes. Peter takes a sip, and the coffee goes down warm and smooth but it's nothing compared to the way Tony is looking at him.

"A prop, huh?" He fiddles with the lid of his own cup, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "Prop implies this is some kind of show, Parker."

Peter nods at a security camera as he takes another sip of his coffee. If he focuses, he can hear it buzzing the way some people—like Michelle—have described being able to hear fluorescent lights. 

The next second after that, Tony's lips smooth away a drop of coffee left on Peter's own. Sounds like Tony fitting the gas nozzle into the fuel tank, and the click as he sets the hold mechanism on the trigger, fade away. Even the sound of Tony putting his coffee down on the roof of the Audi behind Peter just melts away from Peter's mind as their lips brush, much less the buzzing of a damn camera.

Tony takes advantage of the auto-pump to curl both hands around Peter's face, or at least he tries. "Germs," Peter murmurs, so Tony grabs his ass instead, with the hand that he was pumping gas with. _"Sir,"_ says Peter, even as he winds his arms around Tony's neck and lets himself be pulled in.

It goes on for a while, with Tony taking these shaky little breaths even as he tilts Peter's face in his left hand, up toward him, cradling his jaw. It's revealing of how nervous Tony actually is, the playboy persona seemingly left behind in Manhattan, and Peter couldn't be more endeared by it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Peter tells him, and then he makes sure to kiss Tony back. He brushes his fingers over Tony’s facial hair, guiding him into it nice and slow how Peter likes, and gives a lick at Tony’s coffee mouth.

Tony, of course, tilts into it with a groan and Peter reaches further, pulling him closer into his embrace until his jacket rides up and Tony’s hard press of Peter’s hips back against the car crowds a shock of winter-cold, auto-body metal onto the strip of Peter’s skin that is uncovered.

They could stay like that, Peter figures, until the gas is done. Except what happens next is somebody honks, and Tony jerks at the sound, flinching into Peter’s hands, and Peter pulls away and looks and realizes he doesn’t know how long the meter has been standing still at $20.00 worth.

It’s a good thing Tony pre-paid. _Not that it probably matters to Daddy Warbucks,_ Peter reminds himself.

Tony puts the gas nozzle away and replaces the fuel cap, grinning a little sheepishly; Peter’s mind combines the feeling of Tony’s body jerking against him and that boyish, pleased, slightly shame-faced look and wonders if that’s what it will be like when Tony comes.

The rest of the drive is easy, the worst of the tension broken even as low embers of it start up again as Peter puts miles between them and the gas station, where Tony’s coffee lays abandoned on the concrete after slipping, forgotten, off the hood of the car.

Peter gives him his own and Tony drinks it happily.

The cup is trash by the time they reach the cabin.

***

Peter gets out of the Audi and he’s grateful to be done driving. A light dusting of snow crunches along with the twigs under his shoes as he stretches his legs.

“I didn’t know you had a place by the lake,” Peter says.

“No one does,” Tony replies. “Or no one did.”

Peter steps forward, more interested in the garage than the house itself. He heads that way and then stops himself, taking a moment to spin slowly on the spot, arms out, face tilted up to the bleak midwinter sun. “Oh yeah?” he says. “What makes me so special then, Mr. Stark?”

“Everything.”

Tony gets him up against the door to the garage in two strides and it’s a replay of the Circle K all over again. Peter’s sense of Tony doesn’t waver, doesn’t shiver into the kiss. This is real.

Whether Tony Stark is playing celebrity vigilante on his off nights or not, this is real.

The door swings forward out of the doorway behind Peter’s back, and he steps trustingly, blindly through. He steps backwards like they’re dancing, and watches a blue glow take over Tony’s face. Peter turns.

It’s an Iron Man suit, because of course it is. But.

“This is way more advanced than my intelligence led me to believe,” Peter breathes. He steps forward and notices the details of the armor: the streamlined look to it, the lack of extraneous bulk to its curvatures, and the Roman numeral indicating that this is the fiftieth iteration: the Mark L.

“Reddit is not ‘intelligence’.”

“Says the man who just learned what it was,” Peter shoots back, along with a quick smile. He doesn’t waste too much time looking away, though. This armor is a thing of beauty, nothing like what Fake Iron Man’s been floating around in.

Which really begs the question: _what the fuck is going on?_

“Listen, I’m not a complete lush, I just play one in the movies. _I know about Reddit._ ”

“Mmmhmm,” Peter hums, still running his fingers tentatively over the metal tricep of the Mark L.

“Should I leave you two alone?”

Peter bites his lip before shaking his head, and sits down on the lab couch, a healthy distance away from the armor display. “No, I’m good. So…” he throws the armor one last look. “This is you?”

“Yeah.”

“And _this_ is you?” Peter seeks to clarify, pulling his phone out and showing the best photo anyone’s gotten of the Fake Iron Man.

“No, that’s Quentin Beck. Weird dude, crazy eyes. Helped work on the proof of concept for a training module to get me up to speed on combat tactics. Can’t just let an actor play with the big boys without putting him through his virtual paces. Anyway, he stole one of the early Marks and has been a thorn in my side ever since.”

That makes sense, but Peter’s still gobsmacked. “This is _sanctioned_?”

“This?” Tony motions between them, eyebrow quirking. “Definitely not.”

Peter puts his phone away, so he misses it when Tony’s tone takes a turn for the serious, but it’s impossible to miss how earnest Tony is when he ends up on his knees in front of the couch Peter’s still perched on.

“Listen, this is.” Tony stops and rakes a hand through his hair. “This is your last chance, you get that, right? I don’t have clearance to bring you in, not without telling them your name and having them tear apart your life. So if you don’t wanna know, you don’t have to. The State Department probably knows we’re here but they don’t have eyes on the cabin. We can go, I give you the tour, you go home. Beck goes away, you go back to patrolling Queens.”

Peter is the one looking down on Tony now; it’s their first meeting in reverse. “Baby wipes and a fond memory routine?”

“Yeah. If that’s what you want.”

He considers that. Peter really does. It calls into question all kinds of things, this choice. Can he continue to protect Aunt May? Ned? What about MJ, if someone ever finds out who he is and digs up the hundreds of old Instagram posts? California won’t be far enough, then.

Of course, all that could happen anyway. He really should have thought about that before he just blurted to his celebrity crush that he was Spider-Man.

The thing is that Peter kind of thinks, now, that there’s a reason he didn’t.

“Tell me who else. You know I can keep a secret.”

Tony’s hands cover Peter’s knees. He looks like he’s been dying to tell someone. “Rhodey, of course. He’s the first of them, and the last of them, always. Even before I gave a crap about the world or tried heroing, you know I invested in biotech. For his legs. That’s where I got the idea for a sort of exoskeleton approach.”

“That’s where you got the money, too,” Peter puts in. He’d read the _Scientific American_ issue cover-to-cover. It wasn’t every day some rom-com star pushed medical tech forward by ten years, no matter who his father was.

“Some of it. And then it became a thing, right? Supporting the troops. Veterans’ rights. And I could be America’s sweetheart no matter how much coke it took to keep me up. But even after all that crashed and burned, I still had Rhodey, and he had Sam Wilson, who had Steve. Not an unchiseled jawline among them so it wasn’t hard to get them in the pictures, after the first Iron Man.”

Peter sits back, if only to make more space with his body language to coax Tony up off the floor. He’s explaining this all like he’s apologizing for something and Peter won’t have it. That chip on Tony’s shoulder has got to come off sometime. “So they’re in it too?”

“Once a soldier, always a soldier. The movies are the perfect cover, though of course we didn’t think about that then. But we can go anywhere, bring our gear in with wardrobe. Sometimes with merch.”

When Tony finally joins Peter on the couch, Peter draws his knees up to his chest. It’s cold in the garage, yes, but he’s also just thinking. “I can’t believe the State Department agreed to weaponize a bunch of movie stars.”

“Unofficially. Also, I know you’re a young’un, but they have a long history of weaponizing anything they can get their hands on. Gymnastics. Chess. Dancers. Rock bands. Game show hosts.”

“This is some Cold War shit,” Peter decides.

“Mmhmm. Ask Natasha about the Bolshoi sometime. But don’t ask Barnes,” Tony warns.

Peter’s not sure he wants to know, but he asks anyway. “Why not?”

“Know a lot of one-armed ballet dancers?”

 _Yikes._ And that opens up a whole new line of inquiry for Peter.

Peter stops asking questions eventually, however, and they go into the cabin proper for hot cocoa. By then, it’s dark, and Peter’s grateful that he can at least chalk this up to a work trip, insomuch as he at least has some info on Beck now.

It doesn’t mean he’s not a little wigged out, still.

“What I still can’t figure out,” Peter begins, stirring marshmallows into his drink until they’re just foam, “is why you’re telling _me._ ”

“I’m telling you, kid, because I see how good you are. And this? It _feels_ like I finally know what it is I have to do. It feels like every stupid thing my father ever said to me about ‘legacy’, every time Rhodey had to go away for a year, every failed audition, every failed _rehab…_ It feels like it was all to get here. And now, this feels _right_. But I’ve been around the block enough times to not trust that feeling, not without a little outside perspective.”

“So ask Rhodey, not me. I’m practically a stranger.”

“I did ask him. But it’s not fair to put it all on him like he’s my goddamn spirit guide. He went to school for this, for the engineering, we both did. So between him and Bruce and the guys who took my money, they’re doing all the science heavy lifting that I don’t get around to. I can’t ask him to be Team Mom, too.”

Peter pauses with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Does this mean you’re asking _me_ to be Team Mom?”

The look on Tony’s face turns teasing. “Well, technically, you have the most experience out of all of us.”

“Does that make me your mentor?”

“Help me, Obi-Wan. You’re my only hope,” Tony says in a bit of a falsetto, long eyelashes fluttering.

And they don’t stop laughing for an age, throwing quips and references back and forth until all the marshmallows are gone.

***

Later, after Peter’s been shown safely to a lovely guest room with a kitschy flannel bedspread, a tilted ceiling, and a cedar closet, he finishes freaking out.

Then he sneaks into the master bedroom.

Tony’s still up, though the lights are off; he’s doing something with a 3D tablet which excites Peter to his core, but that’s not what he’s here for.

“So when you said you had something really cool to show me, I’m not gonna lie, I kinda thought it might be your dick,” Peter explains, even though it seems unnecessary with the way Tony is already lifting the covers up to grant him access.

“Yeah, well. I’m old, I get tired. Ask me in the morning,” Tony grumps back. However, he puts the tablet away, so Peter counts that as a win.

He watches the blue light flutter in a sea of navy and black shadows, reflecting the pattern of rustling leaves in the moonlight all over the ceiling. “No shoot tomorrow,” says Peter.

“Yeah, but I’m sure you have commitments in Queens. I’ll get you back early, promise.”

Peter swallows that with grace, right up until he doesn’t. “First superhero lesson,” he murmurs in the dark, instead, “is that you don’t fuckin’ push away the only people who get it.”

“I have to go back to Malibu for the rest of production. And then some.”

“Bring your assistant-”

Tony’s voice is just a whisper but it cuts him off all the same. “Peter.”

 _This sucks._ “Why’d you kiss me at the gas station, if you were just gonna do this?”

“The camera. If Fury and Ross review anything, they’ll just figure you for a hook-up. I wanted you to have that choice, that cover, if you needed it.”

 _Right. Sure._ It hurts, but Peter can make sense of that. Except… “Tony?”

“Hm?”

Peter makes sure to turn over on his side, facing the man in question. There’s enough light to see Tony’s profile, especially with the way the stark white of the bedspread makes what light is there bounce all around. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness now, and Peter feels he can see it all clearly.

(Clearly, not purely.)

“Why’d you kiss me when we got here, then?” he asks. _You already admitted they don’t have imagery of the cabin,_ he thinks. _There’s no reason for you to kiss me. No tactical reason._

Tony faces him in turn, until they’re just staring at each other in the relative gloom of the bedroom. He reaches for Peter and Peter lets him, until he’s in range for Tony to brush his mouth against Peter’s forehead in a chaste kiss. 

“I have an addictive personality, you see.”

Peter, whose every instinct—now that he knows the truth of Tony Stark—calls out that he should touch and be touched by someone _safe_ , someone who _understands_ , someone who _matches him_ , does nothing. He has years of practice at ignoring the overwhelming press of his senses, the way things dial themselves up to eleven without his permission.

He also has years of practice doing the heroic thing and putting the wellbeing of others before his own, and he hears what Tony is saying about choice and addiction and needing someone to be your canary in the coal mine. Maybe Tony can’t handle having Peter be all that and also sleep with him.

So Peter lets that thought rattle around the cage of his head (like a dead canary) for a time, until Tony’s breathing evens out beside him.

***

That’s why he’s awake when the nightmares come.

Tony’s body jerks in bed and Peter is instantly aware of it. He's muttering, too, and sweating; Peter knows what that means from his own experience. He tries to shake Tony gently awake at first, then gets more insistent.

"Hey, hey, wake up, please wake up-" 

The grip that wraps itself around Peter’s wrists is bruising, but Tony’s eyes don’t open.

“Please, sir, _sir,_ Tony, Tony! Wake up!”

“Kid?” Tony croaks.

And then it’s nothing for Peter to flip his hands to the outside, freeing himself and taking hold of Tony’s forearms in one smooth motion; they’re both shaking. He pulls Tony closer into him and barely refrains from saying something like, _I told you so. Don’t push away the people who get it._

“Are you okay?” Peter asks instead.

Not having had time to do anything so planned as pack pajamas, Peter’s in just his boxer briefs and the undershirt he’d worn all day. There’s nothing much between them when Tony does something so uncharacteristically needy that it steals Peter’s breath; he hooks his leg around the back of Peter’s calf like he wants to hold on without actually holding on.

“Do you wanna talk about it? What you dreamed about?”

There’s a beat. “It was about… collateral damage.”

 _Oh._ Peter’s been there, done that, bought the therapy. Well. Used the BetterHelp free trial. Same thing, he supposes. “Everyone’s okay. You’re okay, I’m okay.”

“It was Rhodey. He was falling from friendly fire. I went after him and you went after me.”

Peter touches Tony’s face in the dark, same as he did at the gas station: gently. Then he smooths his hand down Tony’s neck, over his tense shoulder, and in a sweep down his arm like he’s pulling the anxiety from him and shoving it out, down a trash chute where it belongs. “Of course I did. I bet Steve and Sam were right behind me, if not ahead of me. And all the rest. Clint, crazy circus bastard, was probably waiting at the bottom with a trapeze net.”

Tony huffs a breath that’s not quite a laugh, but Peter will take it. He touches Tony again, imagining he can feel the tension bleeding up and out of Tony’s muscles into his palm, so Peter can discard it for him. “You say that like you don’t fit right in, you little adrenaline junkie,” says Tony, after a moment.

“Adrenaline junkie, huh?” Peter murmurs, letting his voice go all breathy and arch, the same way Tony had done yesterday when he caught Peter in the lie about not having seen any of the Avengers movies. Then he makes one more sweeping pass down Tony’s arm with his hand, until he can curl his fingers around Tony’s elbow, just like he might if they were making love in a tight embrace.

“Mmhmm,” Tony hums back at him. He matches Peter’s teasing tone, and that’s how Peter knows what he’s about to do is alright.

He finds the little divot in the crook of Tony’s elbow where a needle might have gone once, where the skin is soft, and pinches. “What’s that you said about an addictive personality?” he says into the kiss that comes after it.

“Fuck, Peter, you’re so-”

But Peter never finds out what he so is, because he devours Tony’s mouth and the words with it. If he were younger, seventeen or so, he’d be a little overwhelmed by how much Tony seems to need him. Peter thinks about this as the older, bigger, but not stronger man rolls over closer to crowd Peter against the mattress, lips vibrating into their kiss with bitten-off groans. But Peter isn’t seventeen; he’s a few years on from that, and he’s had buildings and bodies and bombs on top of him. Tony’s weight is nothing, and he’s including the figurative weight of years in that calculation.

Peter gets one hand hooked into the waistband of Tony’s pajama pants, a cerulean plaid that has gone black in the dark of the bedroom. Like everything else about him, this is a surprise; Peter had somehow expected everything to be red and gold inside the house, but it occurs to him then, apropos of nothing, that the house is mostly teal greens and warm navys, straight-grained modern wood and mirrored metal.

As Tony pushes up on one hand over Peter, who rises, curling his abs in a way that only builds heat in his belly, Peter follows Tony close and chases another kiss.

Peter cocks his hips in just the right way to make a cradle for Tony’s body, an invitation even as he tries to meet him. And the way Tony looks down at him, looks down at Peter so clearly showing how much he wants him back with eyes shiny in the low light, has nothing of celebrity to it, nothing of Iron Man or even the nightmare left.

 _He’s just a man,_ Peter thinks. _And so am I._

“We don’t have to,” Peter says reasonably. “But I really want to. And I want you to know you don’t have to do any of this alone, Malibu or no Malibu.”

Tony rocks forward just a little bit, and it puts their foreheads together. He shifts a little more and Peter gets the thrill of heat where their crotches press together, Tony’s cock laying like a sun-warmed brick, heavy and hot, next to his own. Peter inhales deep, like he could draw Tony into him that way on his own.

Tony’s left arm shakes, presumably with the strain of keeping up the tenuous, entropic balance they’ve struck, and Peter touches him there again, at the thin skin near the vein in his elbow. He pinches again, lighter this time. “You’re awake. Not dreaming. Just let it happen.”

And then Peter collapses back, confident that Tony won’t try to push him away again, and Tony follows him down. He kisses him on the mouth only once more, hard and _worth it,_ before he’s skipping down Peter’s neck with little smooches and pushing Peter’s shirt up to touch his nipples just like Peter’s fantasy from before.

Tony’s lower body slides away from Peter’s, lessening the delicious pressure on his dick through sleep-warm cotton, but Peter’s too preoccupied with the kisses his chest is getting to mourn it much. They’re just enough to wet his nipples before Tony exhales rough and affected over Peter’s torso, chilling and thrilling him.

He anticipates the touch of Tony’s thumbs and arches into them, heart hammering both front and back into Tony’s hands as they cradle the arch Peter makes of his body trying to get the rest of the way out of his shirt.

Tony swears to see him uncovered and it goes straight to Peter’s ego, and his cock. “Malibu,” Tony says softly, too, which goes straight to Peter’s heart. “You’re right, you could come, you can come any time you want-”

The joke is _right there,_ and Peter makes it to keep from thinking about how much he wants that, to keep from making promises he might not be able to keep. “Well, _yeah,_ sir. I sure was _hoping_ so…”

The short laugh Tony gives him ripples right against Peter’s belly and it’s embarrassing how close he is already. In his defense, his senses give him a hair-trigger at the best of times, and he’s been waiting all night, since the car ride, maybe since he saw Tony from that corner in Brooklyn.

Some hitch of Peter’s breath must give him away because Tony’s nails scrape the sensitive skin of Peter’s ass, reaching up for a desperate handful through the bottom cuff of his boxer-briefs, and Peter has just enough vision through slitted eyes to see the way Tony watches him twitch his hips both into and away from it, restless. “Oh, really?” Tony says, sounding fascinated. “I guess you weren’t joking.”

“Shut _up._ ”

“No, no, it’s- God, baby, that’s… Tell me what you need me to do,” Tony grinds out, voice gravel, even as he gets Peter’s hips up and his underwear the rest of the way off. “Tell me what you _want_ me to do.”

“Anything, _anything_ -”

That’s what Peter _says_ , but he’s certainly not expecting it when Tony sucks the head of his cock softly into his mouth with a hungry, desiring moan straight out of Peter’s imagination. _Oh, fuck,_ Peter has the presence of mind to think. It’s his last thought before that slick warmth continues down the rest of him, in perfect, smooth counterpoint to the way Tony’s action-star biceps hold onto Peter’s jumping thighs to keep him still.

It pins him in the moment—sticks him there, feeling it all—and well before he’s ready to handle the feeling, Peter fucks into Tony’s mouth shallowly two, three times, and comes until he’s lightheaded.

Tony gentles him through it, swallowing like it satisfies him deeply to do so, petting at Peter’s hips before unwinding himself from them and taking his mouth away.

“Fuck, kid. You been building up to that for a while, hmm?”

Peter just breathes, arm flung over his eyes, and flails out with a foot to wrap his bare leg around the mass of Tony’s body, when he finds it. He encourages Tony back into the straddle of his legs, desperate to be close to him. “It’s always like that. I can’t- I feel everything _so much_ , and you were- hell, sir, you were so _good_.”

“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart,” Tony intimates, sucking at his own mouth a little and getting close, “but you calling me ‘sir’ really loses something when I have a load of everything this little twink bod can manage, in my mouth.”

Peter knows he blushes, hot and probably in more places than just his face, but Tony doesn’t tease him further, just gives him a little taste of a smooch that Peter sighs into as he comes fully down from his peak.

And secretly, it’s a reassurance, too. He doubts famous Tony Stark, the A-lister, sucks much cock for one-night stands that he intends to never see again, forget about swallowing. This is close and intimate and authentically the gayest thing Peter’s ever done. It’s as soft and secret and sweet as the cabin itself, and Peter feels a strong urge to reciprocate in spectacular fashion.

“Gimme a second,” he tells Tony, whose shifting he interprets as impatience. “I can go like ten rounds and it really makes up for the quick-”

“You might be able to, but some of us are only human,” he is informed, with Tony interrupting Peter mock-petulantly even as he smooths Peter’s wrecked sex hair back from his ear. All his motions are tender, if one-handed.

That confuses Peter for a second. “Wait, when did you… did you come?” he asks, before he gets his answer as Tony’s other hand trails wet and purposeful towards his hole.

“It’s been a while for me too, and I like making people feel good, fall apart, that sort of thing,” Tony tells him with that flash of a smile that Peter’s growing so fond of. “So getting you off with my mouth was enough for me. This time. Next time, maybe I’ll even get to watch.”

 _Oh?_ Peter thinks, still a little orgasm-dumb. _Ohhhh._

“Can I touch you here?”

It’s the way he asks, for Peter. He nods, and even musters up his voice for a little, tiny ‘sure’. Tony smiles at him even wider, closer, and kisses Peter at the same time as his finger breaches him.

Peter exhales long and loud, and Tony doesn’t laugh at that, not at all. “Oh, God,” Peter says.

“Tell me about it.”

 _What’s there to tell?_ Peter thinks wildly. _Besides the fact that you’re opening me up with your own jizz._ When he puts it that way to himself, his flush deepens and Peter feels his dick make a valiant effort to re-acquaint itself with the proceedings. “It feels so good,” Peter manages before he covers his eyes with his arm again.

Tony keeps fingering him but he tuts his disapproval. He even tries to urge Peter’s arm away from his face with his nose, but Peter’s not having it. It’s really difficult to keep from making ridiculous faces as Tony pets smoothly inside him, playing with him where he’s tight, as Peter relaxes muscle by muscle. At least this way, with his face hidden, Peter can pretend like Tony’s not drinking in the sight of him and his pleasure like a man lost in the desert, dying of thirst.

(Even though Peter knows he is.)

Of course, Tony eventually does play dirty. He withdraws his finger and wipes his hand on his shirt as Peter peeks at him. 

It does something to Peter to realize that Tony is fully-clothed, albeit in pajamas, while Peter is on display. He feels his dick harden further and he teases himself with light fingers as Tony strides over to the nightstand to rummage through it. Moonlight illuminates him as Peter watches and plays. 

Tony sends him a look that cuts through the night. "No."

Peter lets go.

When Tony rejoins him, he brings lube. He scratches the flat edge of the tube on sensitive parts of Peter's skin; he scrapes over the center line of his chest, the inside of his arm, and the place where Peter's thigh meets his ass-cheek. He meets Peter's eye. "You can have this, if you're good."

Peter considers what's being said here, even as his lips respond without his permission, mirroring Tony's little smile. It's making Tony happy to please Peter, it seems…

This is so different from the selfish, forceful, dominant stereotype of a celebrity playboy he'd been expecting.

And what does it say, really, about what more is to come? This isn't the character Tony plays in the movies, the guy who had to get kidnapped to start giving a crap. Peter knows he poured a lot of his own character into the series—it's the nature of the beast with faux found footage when you share the character's name—but Peter can see the seams now.

He can see how Tony really has misgivings about people getting hurt if he can't hack the real thing, hero-wise, and how he has a chip on his shoulder about becoming a heartthrob star instead of a hyper-competent, if eccentric, CEO like everyone had expected. Peter can tell that Tony has been doing 'fake it until you make it' for far too long.

 _Maybe he'll never feel like he's made it,_ Peter thinks, _without someone telling him he's done good._

"How can I be good?" Peter finally asks. _How can we be good together?_

"Don't hide your face. Let me see, okay?"

"Okay," Peter promises. "Even though I've never done something like this before," he adds, in deference to his nerves, as Tony slicks up his fingers.

He gives Peter two this time, which Peter bites his lip about, feeling his toes curl. _Oh._ Don't get him wrong, sex with MJ and then… with Gwen… then MJ again, it had all been great; this, however, is a new and exciting kind of experience.

"I got you, you're alright."

Peter can't do much more than let his eyes fall shut and believe that, right now. Tony's fingers are making a home inside him now, and it's so intense. They keep finding a really wonderful spot that shocks him with its sensitivity, and Peter has to curl his face into the hand Tony has snuck between the side of Peter's head and his pillow, just to keep from getting loud. "Oh my goddd," he whines into Tony's palm.

"Good, Peter?" 

"Sssssoooo good, keep doing that."

And it's the way Tony looks so pleased at that, both turned on and healed by Peter's coming undone, that stokes Peter’s pleasure up higher. He feels feverish, ignited, and full. Tony slips him a third finger as soon as Peter takes his next deep breath, and Peter feels like he exhales fire as it goes in.

It’s almost a little too much, except for how it makes Peter start thinking about what else Tony might give him, and how Peter would happily wrap himself around his cock if it was on offer.

He has to turn fully onto his stomach just to be able to take it, which dislodges Tony anyway. But Peter’s cock gets pressed into the sheets and he has to cover the back of his own neck with his hands in embarrassment at how his body reacts to that fact. Peter’s shoulders scrunch up even as he presses his forehead into Tony’s soft pillow, and tries not to fuck against the mattress like a bad puppy.

The thing is, Tony’s clean hand joins Peter’s own at the back of his neck. He encourages him with little ‘shhh, shhh, shhhs’ that land in the dip of Peter’s spine as he continues to frot helplessly. Then, Tony smooths his hand up the back of his thigh and makes this little noise like he’s turned on just from how the muscle flexes with Peter’s desperation.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Peter guts out, spreading his legs a little wider. _Tell me while you fuck me._

By some trick of good luck—for once—Tony must hear him, because not only does he start talking but he gets his other hand back to where Peter is feeling empty, and fills him back up. Two fingers make the perfect counterpoint to the smooth, cool sheets on his erection, and Peter strains to hear over the blood rushing in his ears.

“Turn your face for me, there you go, baby,” Tony is saying as Peter obeys mindlessly. “Wanna see you come this time, kid.”

“Okay, okay-”

Tony hums at him happily, and asks, “Right here?” with his fingertips nudging what Peter would figure as his prostate, if he had brain enough left to worry about it.

“Ngggh-”

“There you are. I got you,” Tony repeats. “I never get to do this more than once unless it’s with a woman. But next time, when it’s not the middle of the night, I’m gonna get you going and not let you stop coming until I’m satisfied. _Then_ I’ll fuck you. Deal?”

“D-deal,” Peter manages. It’s almost enough to get him there. He thinks about it, about Tony pushing into him, and about how it will be when it happens—two people-pleasers wrapped up in each other. They’ll feedback-loop into each other’s pleasure over and over, he’s sure, until neither of them can feel or see anything but the other person. 

He can’t wait.

“In the morning,” he says, pushing up onto his forearm. “In the morning, that’s not the middle of the night.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Okay, I’ll make you feel good then. But you gotta come for me first, just like this. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Peter promises, even nodding a bit, and he gets the hand that he’s not leaning on down and around his own length, pumping tight and fast a few times to the same rhythm as Tony fucking into him.

“Come on, spiderling. Give it to me, kid, come on,” says Tony, in just the same way he’d asked for the fake coffee, the first time they met, and that’s what does it.

Peter feels his fingers and toes tingle, then spills into his own hand with a bitten-off moan that Tony echoes. You’d think Tony was the one getting off, with the noise he makes and the way he clutches Peter close as soon as he’s done fucking Peter through his little tremors.

“Oh my god,” Tony tells him, speaking into Peter’s hair as he pulls him out of the wet spot. “You’re amazing.”

Peter, sweating and blissed out, peeks at how the sky is getting lighter outside the window, and snuggles into Tony’s arms for what he hopes is a long winter’s nap. “That’s me, the amazing Spider-Man,” he quips, and it feels good to say it to someone who knows and understands. He thinks, fleetingly and as if from beneath a heavy, warm blanket in his mind, that what Tony was saying about not getting to do this except with women reminds Peter of nothing else so much as his own thoughts about Gwen and MJ. And the way they each just want the other to feel good, to be okay, and damn the rest… that’s hero stuff, that’s kind, giving, smart people who want to wring out multiple orgasms for science stuff.

 _We’re the same,_ basically. That’s what Peter thinks, even as his mind settles nice and blank and protected as he is cuddled and coaxed onto Tony’s side of the bed. Tony draws the blankets back over them and wraps him up.

“You’re amazing, too,” he mumbles into Tony’s neck. It feels important to say it. “We’re both amazing. We should like, date, or something.”

“We can talk about _that_ in the morning,” Tony replies, teasing. “If I don’t get a better offer.”

And Peter sleeps.

***

When he wakes up, Peter is so, so, so glad that they did something, that he didn’t leave it until morning.

Without the bone-deep satisfaction of two good orgasms and a nice sleep running through his system, he’s not sure he would have had the certainty about Tony’s feelings that he needs, now, to look at the note that he has been left and know that it’s a bunch of bullshit.

 _It’s not a better offer, honey, but it’s one I couldn’t refuse. Sleep, I’ll meet you at the next hotel,_ it says cryptically. He runs to the garage and notices the Audi’s where he parked it.

But the Mark L is gone.

Swearing, Peter runs back upstairs and tears through Tony’s room until he finds a pair of jeans that will do, and a sweater. He puts on his shoes and calls Ned as he’s on his way out the door, scraping the key fob out of a bowl by the cabin door. It doesn’t go through at first and Peter swears again, this time at his phone. He gets in the car.

 _Push to start, push to start,_ he chants as he does just that. The Audi’s engine flips over and he backs out haphazardly over the gravel as his phone syncs with the car’s system, a remnant of yesterday’s forays through his Spotify once the radio had gotten old.

His call connects this time, as Peter reaches the main road out.

“Peter? You never texted me last night but the tracker must have been in a dead zone because-”

“I was getting laid, we can talk about it later, he’s been kidnapped or some shit.” Fuck. Fucking fuck. _Dead zone. Tony would._

“Kidnapped? Oh man oh man oh man, they are gonna be _pissed_ when they realize they took some rando when they coulda had Spider-Man. Oh my goddd.”

Peter leans to see properly as he blows through an empty intersection. Most people are probably bundled up, staying home safe from the cold. “Yeah, I don’t think so, man. I think they’re gonna be pretty happy to have Tony Stark.”

“You _what-_ ”

“What’s the next hotel on the list? The TripAdvisor list? Send me the address, okay? I staked out one last night and nothing, so send me the next one. He’ll be there.”

Peter can practically hear Ned’s anxiety and excitement ramping up in equal measure, even over the phone. “How do you know?” Ned asks.

Even as he merges onto a bigger road, Peter thinks back to the way there had been a carton of eggs left open on the kitchen counter, when he’d come down. There’d been a cast iron pan on the stove, with cold butter in it. Tony was going to make him breakfast, and then either Beck or some member of the State Department with a bad attitude had come and taken him.

 _He was going to make me an omelet._ Bastards.

They probably let Tony leave the note thinking Peter was just his dumb squeeze, and that it would hold off Peter from making a missing persons call. They’d underestimated him, and now Tony was counting on Peter to take advantage of that.

“He wouldn’t have just left, Ned,” Peter says, after a too-long pause.

There’s the sound of a rolling chair on what Peter presumes to be the hardwood of Ned’s room. “Are you sure?” Ned prompts him, not unkindly.

“I’m sure.”

***

It takes Peter over an hour to get back to Manhattan—even pushing the Audi as close to its limit as traffic will allow—and once he’s close enough that he can see the sign of the hotel from the crush of cars he’s trapped in, there’s no way he’s going to bypass it for the gym in Brooklyn to retrieve his suit. It’s gonna have to be web-shooters only this time; there’s no time to waste.

Besides, Peter kind of wants to see the look on the kidnappers’ faces when Tony’s ‘one-night stand’ comes busting in to break it all up.

It’s only when he walks in the front door that he realizes he has no more information to go off of.

A cursory glance of the hotel lobby doesn’t reveal much. There is the usual passel of holiday tourists, most likely having come to see the tree in Rockefeller Center for some ungodly reason. There’s a harried-looking employee of the hotel mopping up water with a clear trash bag next to him that looks to be filled with what remains of the floral arrangement and the vase it was in. Other than that, it’s just an older woman in a long coat reading a newspaper by the fire, and a guy who looks just a bit too much like Hitler fiddling with a camera bag by the Christmas tree.

Peter does a double-take.

_Yep. It’s the paparazzo Steve punched that one time. Hallelujah._

Peter darts back to the Audi and looks for anything expensive he can use as a prop. He finds one of Tony’s Burberry coats and a zip-up that he vaguely recognizes as Stussy, or something trendy like that. And he finds a pair of masculine-looking metal bracelets and a pair of huge sunglasses in the glove compartment that _greet_ him when he puts them on.

“Hello, Peter Parker. I’m F.A.I.T.H. and I’ve been instructed to grant you admin-level access to basic weapons systems in an emergency. Is this an emergency?”

 _Oh my god. YES._ “Yes!”

“Would you like to authorize a body scan for better targeting calibration?”

“Um, yes, authorized?” Peter squeaks. He stills momentarily with the designer outerwear in his hands as the HUD on the glasses shows his body being scanned. The sense of it happening shivers over his sixth sense, and then the display goes back to normal.

“Body scan completed. I’ve noticed you appear to have some projectile weaponry anchored at the wrists. Mr. Stark shoots from the palm. Should I recalibrate for that as well?” the cool, electronic voice asks him.

“Please do,” Peter mutters as he struggles into more of Tony’s clothes, musses his hair in the reflection of the car window, and pulls out his fancy work phone. He hits the button to facetime Ned—who answers immediately—and says, “Just go with it,” as he walks back through the doors.

Peter puts on his best ‘influencer’ voice, landing somewhere between James Charles and Philip De Franco. He takes a deep breath.

“So anyway, guys,” he blurts with an eye-roll for emphasis, holding up his phone like he’s looking in the camera, “I totally _hoofed it_ all the way to this hotel just to catch a glimpse of Tony Stark totally fucking losing it, Britney-style, but now he’s not even here! Can you believe?”

And he drops into the lobby chair near where the paparazzo is standing.

Peter adjusts his sunglasses. “So, like, it’s not a big deal—and if you’re a new subscriber, don’t worry, this doesn’t usually happen—but I have the interview with him later? To talk about the movie? So I just wanted to make sure he’s okay? I _know,_ right? Mental health is _so_ important-”

The paparazzo coughs.

“...and anyway, I just wanted to say to all my lovely fans, I love you guys so much. I will keep you all updated on Twitter, follow me there! I’m going to see what there is to see here, lovelies, and then I’ll be on my way to the location that we have booked for the exclusive! This is so exciting! I hope he shows. Okay, I’ll share with you guys then, byeeeeee!”

And Peter makes the screen go dark, though Ned should still be getting visual, and he waits.

(It doesn’t take long.)

“Excuse me, I heard you talking about Tony Stark?”

Peter makes himself blink and jump and smile wide. “Oh my god, hi!”

“Hi,” the paparazzo says quietly, looking indulgent like he thinks Peter is a vapid idiot. Peter can’t really blame him. “Listen, kid, you tell me where Stark’s gonna be later, I’ll tell you where he is right now. Good luck getting in there, they’ve got guards at the door; I get the sense that it’s some kind of intervention. He broke the flowers and everything, but…”

He trails off and his meaning is clear. _You interested?_

Peter is _very_ interested. “Oh that would be great! I’m just, like, really worried about him and I bet all my followers are too. I have a vlog going up with him later and it’s just so exciting! I’ve never been to La Grenouille before, and I kinda have this _crush_ -”

“Uh huh, thanks, kid, listen I gotta go… why don’t you check on Stark, they’ve got the conference center up on twenty, with the event balcony? See ya. Thanks again.”

 _No,_ Peter thinks. _Thank you._

From there, he flounces down the hallway and strips out of his coats and the persona in the elevator. It’s odd, putting on his game face without the mask. Peter has come to rely on the ritual of putting on his suit to get him into the heroic mindset. He wonders, as the number indicating what floor he’s on climbs closer to twenty, if Tony does anything similar.

Putting it out of his mind, Peter goes to take the bracelets off, intending to pocket them… but they won’t come off. He brings up Ned on his phone again. “Hey man, I’m gonna go dark for a bit. Don’t call for backup; if this is what I think it is, the police won’t be able to do shit. But you know where I am and… well I’ve got these,” Peter says, adjusting the sunglasses on his face. “And I’ve got my shooters and these are probably something,” he adds, indicating the bracelets.

He can see Ned peer into his screen, making the other man’s face go all fishbowl-perspective. “Oh, yeah! Those were in the last Avengers movie! They’re probably just a prop, though. I mean, they even had them in the Lego set; it was a plot point when Iron Man was disarmed and he double-tapped and then fought off the-”

Peter double-taps his left bracelet, right in the center.

“Whoa!”

The grin that splits Peter’s face must be something, because Ned is both going wild and hushing himself, like the two sides of his personality are warring. Peter tries the right bracelet and gets the same response: a gauntlet with a pulsing light in the center constructs itself over his hand.

“Oh my gosh, _Peter,_ are the Avengers _real?_ Are you one? Did you fuck Tony Stark to get on the _Avengers_?”

Floor nineteen. Peter takes a deep breath. “I’ll talk to you later, man,” he says shortly, and hangs up.

The doors open on floor twenty, and Peter strides forward. He leaves his phone safely in the base of a potted plant, some kind of fake ficus, and moves nonchalantly for the heavy, wood doors at the end of a long hallway. With any luck, he was surreptitious enough that the guards will just think he’s some wandering kid, Peter hopes.

Of course, when has Peter ever had any luck?

The two men flanking the doors square up as Peter approaches, and one goes for his gun.

Peter lets him fire it, but only because he knows there’s just an elevator behind him, and that the sound of the shot will disorient the guard’s partner as well as alert Tony, if he’s inside, that Peter is here to get him.

Otherwise, Peter merely dodges the trajectory of the shot and succinctly webs Tony’s jacket to one guy's face. The hoodie is sacrificed to obscuring the other one’s vision. 

Peter disarms the guard with the gun, as soon as he’s blinded. He doesn’t really want to hold onto it—he’s no good with guns—but he also doesn’t have much choice. He checks the safety and then tucks it into his waistband.

And then, instead of going through the doors where he will no doubt have a death ray or some shit trained on him, Peter blasts out—using both of Tony’s gauntlets—two identical holes on either side of the conference room door and then picks one to dart through. He puts the gauntlets away, preferring to keep an ace up his sleeve.

This time, Peter’s luck holds. Peter keeps his momentum and is halfway across the conference room before the Iron Man rushing at the other hole in the wall can re-orient himself to Peter’s sudden presence.

The problem, of course, is that there are two Iron Mans…er, Iron Men. The one near the hole in the wall looks clunkier than the other one, which is the Mark L. The clunky Iron Man spins on its heel and dives for Peter, who assesses that the Mark L is a much greater threat.

He makes the decision quickly and lets himself be tackled by the clunkier Iron Man. He can take it. And so Peter uses what little time he has before his adversary reaches him to web the Mark L’s leg, with Tony’s glasses helping him target hyper-accurately, before he hits the ground.

The Mark L can’t detach his web, and Peter holds onto it with all his might when the suit gives a powered yank that nearly pulls him clear of the Iron Man on top of him; he’d probably be clear across the room were it not for the clunkier suit’s weight pinning him down.

It slows him down just long enough for the glasses to hone in on a row of people all sitting in a line. They’re tied into the chairs on one side of a long conference table, like some kind of bizarre Last Supper tableau. They’re all gagged and silent, eyes wide. That explains why it took Peter a hot second to clock them after coming in.

(None of them are Tony.)

Peter doesn’t have any longer to take in the sight of hostages, however, because the Mark L gives another almighty jerk on Peter’s web, and he slips out of the grasp of Iron Man Original. Peter manages to make his skid into something useful and he plants his feet like he’s water-skiing, letting the momentum pull him up to a half-crouch that becomes a flip so he can clothesline the Mark L around the neck with his thigh.

It’s an old trick, one he uses all the time on bigger, stronger opponents when they pull on exactly the wrong thread; it uses their own strength and weight against them. The armor goes down hard and Peter springboards off its helmet to add insult to injury. He lands gracefully a ways away and holds up his wrist at the other Iron Man. If he needs to, he’ll web him right in the face, and not even in a fun way. “You wanna tell me what this is about? Why do you need hostages? Where’s Tony?”

“One,” the Mark L says, scrambling up and drawing Peter’s attention back that way, “they’re not hostages, they’re our lovely _audience_.”

Jesus Christ. This Beck guy is cuckoo-bananas. Peter assumes he gave himself the luxury model suit.

“Two,” he continues, “you won’t get anything out of him. He’s the strong but silent type.”

And with that, the Mark L uses a laser-cutting setting to sever Peter’s web, and then promptly goes invisible.

 _Stealth mode,_ _great._ Peter’s glasses go wild trying to pin-point the location of the enemy, and it’s too sudden, too much input. The HUD is flashing erratically as it fails to lock-on, and Peter can’t take it. There’s a reason he wears his mask the way he does and it’s to block _out_ exactly this kind of sensory stimulus.

"Just ID the hostages, Faith," he mutters quickly, and darts away in case there's an invisible, iron fist headed his direction.

In the next moment, Peter is glad he did move, whether he was about to get clocked or not, because his movement draws Iron Man Classic's obsessive attention. The clunky armor stumbles towards him again, chasing.

Peter moves again and tries to split his focus three ways. One, he pays some attention to avoiding the lumbering linebacker that is the older armor following him around—Peter doesn't get why he doesn't just attack with the repulsors, but whatever—and two, he also listens to Faith explain that he's currently exposing his secret identity to half the State Department, including the Secretary himself, a Mr. Thaddeus Ross, and his Undersecretary, a Miss Virginia Potts.

The third slice of Peter's focus is going to reaching out with his senses, trying to pinpoint Beck or at the very least dodge any incoming attacks.

It would be easier if he could get the psycho talking. He feels along the temple of the sunglasses and mutes Faith in order to focus on getting this just right.

"Whaddaya say we let these people go, okay? If you need an audience, I'll set you up with a Twitch account like a normal shut-in, how does that sound?" Peter tries.

It works. Beck scoffs, "Jesus, you're just a _baby._ See, this is what Stark is hiding behind that playboy routine… he's fucking his zillennial assistant. Typical. I remember you from the gas station camera, wasn't that sweet?"

 _Well, that explains some things._ But more importantly, it helps Peter get a sense of where Beck is in the oversized conference room.

And once he knows where to look for it, Peter is able to catalog the odd shifting glint and blur of the cloaking technology. It's not seamless. Once his eyes are adjusted, he can't unsee it. Furthermore, Faith—trained as she apparently is to scan for and identify organic traces—helpfully locks-on to a bit of Peter's leftover webbing, stuck right there on the Mark L's thigh. It gives Peter a brilliant idea.

"Faith," Peter instructs quietly as he dodges and feints, playing at ignorance of Beck's movements, "reconstruct Mr. Stark's standard body scan calibration and synchronize it around historical data relating to the webshot you helped me target previously."

The glasses—or rather, the AI in them—give Peter what he needs nearly instantly, and he couldn’t be more grateful. Now he can see Beck (sort of) and it’s all he needs to start landing hits. He shoves Beck this way and that, before somersaulting out of the way, trying to upset the man’s equilibrium. If he can get Beck scrambled a little, it’ll take him more time to get out of Peter’s webs, even with the full power of the Mark L at his disposal.

If Peter is lucky, it’ll be just enough time to get the hostages to safety. That’s what he’s counting on, anyway.

Unfortunately, the more Peter pushes Beck around, the more determined he seems to get. “Look at this!” Beck cries out, showboating. He dodges Peter this time and gets a vice-like hand around Peter’s ankle before Peter can pull off any sort of defense. He slams Peter to the ground, hard on his back.

 _Ow._ Peter struggles to scramble away.

“Look at these two. It’s not even a fair fight! Two on one, and still, _still!_ There’s nothing they can do against the might of Stark’s new toy. This is what he’s been hiding from you! Cloaking technology, nanotech, and more firepower than you can shake a stick at! Just sitting in his garage while the taxpayers are stuck about twenty Marks back. How do you like them apples, Mr. Secretary of State, hmmm?”

Beck gestures grandly at a grey-haired hostage, and Peter uses the scant moment of inattention to scoot just out of range. He’s pretty sure his ankle is at the very least sprained, and his healing is gonna take care of it, sure, but it’s definitely gonna slow him down until then. His bruised back isn’t good news either.

Peter gets up. _Time to buy more time._ “Well, I mean, you’re a scientist, right? Surely you know what a _pro-to-type_ is?” Peter calls, elongating the word into separate syllables like Beck is five years old. “It means it’s not done, so not sure what you’re going on about-”

Peter dodges the shoulder-cannon blast neatly, letting it blow out the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. _Cool._

Not-so-cool is the fact that Peter has to skirt away from the other Iron Man, who guns for him _again_ —seriously, dude?—and who inadvertently puts Peter back within Beck’s range by doing so.

Frustrated, Peter takes to the ceiling and lets his instincts take over, allowing him to miss several repulsor blasts that open up pockets of sky through the roof. Turning and surveying, upside-down, the Swiss cheese Beck is making of this poor hotel, Peter immediately swings through one of the holes. He anchors onto a sturdy-looking pole on the roof, takes a wild, wide swing around the pole itself to build momentum, and whips himself back through one of the other holes to land _hard_ on the clunky Iron Man. The force of Peter’s assault takes the armor and the man in it to the ground, with Peter ending up practically sitting on the guy’s face.

Desperately scrabbling for something to hold onto before he goes ass over teakettle, Peter halts his tumbling when his nails catch on a groove in the Iron Man’s faceplate. The thing pops open with a _clang_ that echoes something awful in Peter’s skull as he lands in a heap.

“And you see that, right?” Beck crows. “Not only does Stark spend his whole time trying to protect his piece of ass, but the piece of ass isn’t even smart enough to realize who he’s fighting! And this is the kid getting state secrets spilled into his ear like a sweet nothing? I don’t _think_ so!”

He’s sounding more and more unhinged by the minute, Peter estimates as he sits up, but he cuts off that train of thought because _oh my god, it’s Tony._

It’s Tony in the old suit; he must have been locked in as part of Beck’s little deranged demonstration. Peter’s heart leaps.

“Tony!” he tries, but there isn’t time for a reunion.

“You see how _selfish_ they are. This one,” Beck asserts, nudging Tony’s cheek with the foot of the armor as Peter gets to his feet, “hasn’t even tried to evacuate any of you. And neither has the so-called _amazing_ Spider-Man! And he’s supposed to be a real hero. That’s pathetic, or careless, one or the other.”

Beck kicks out at Tony’s helmet even as Peter dives for him; the clang of metal on metal is all that lets Peter know that Tony probably doesn’t have a skull or jaw fracture.

 _This motherfucker,_ he thinks. Unfortunately, Peter didn’t go with much of a plan besides ‘do not fucking kick my boyfriend, you loon’ so Beck grabs him and throws Peter through the open panel of windows. Peter’s insanely glad the glass is already gone, even as he momentarily freefalls.

When Peter reaches out with a web and pulls himself back into the fight and away from the emergency personnel beginning to crowd around the street below, Beck is still talking.

“...not limited at all. I mean sure I gagged him and played around with the software so he’d play nice for the demonstration, but it’s like he’s not even trying. You want this guy in charge of saving people, when he can’t even make the right call between protecting his sugar baby and protecting members of the United States government- agh!”

Peter _thwips_ himself back into the room and boots Beck’s armor right in the face. _Payback’s a bitch._ Besides, it jives with Peter’s new plan, which goes something like: Distract. Enrage. Lose. That combo will hopefully be followed closely by: Bait. Switch. Win.

The winning part is gonna be his favorite part, Peter can tell. But first…

“So let me get this straight,” Peter starts, crouching upside-down on the ceiling while he waits for Beck to shake it off. His plan only works with buy-in from this wingnut, which means he can’t bash his face in like he really wants to. “You think _you_ could do better? The point of a hero isn’t to be someone who always makes the right call. Being a hero is about being someone who doesn’t _shy away_ from making a call, who doesn’t pass off responsibility to someone else either before or after the shit hits the fan. A hero is just someone who doesn’t give up.”

The Mark L’s head tilts at him like Peter is a particularly stupid pet. Beck rises.

“Which, by the way,” Peter adds, gesturing, “is way easier to do when you actually care about someone besides yourself.”

Now _that_ gets Beck’s attention.

“Oh, is that right?” he asks, his voice soft somehow even through the Mark L’s faceplate. It’s disconcerting, and it makes him sound dangerous. “What about when you just care too much, hmm? Or about…” he trails off, stepping away from Peter in a way that starts to set off alarm bells in Peter’s head, “...too many things at once?”

Peter moves instinctively towards Tony, who appears to be struggling with an uncooperative suit. The Iron Man Classic appears to have sustained some damage, though Peter is more concerned with Tony’s face, which sports an altogether small gash that probably belies a nasty concussion, and the sophisticated metal gag blocking Tony’s mouth.

However, Beck doesn’t go that way at all. He moves towards the table with the hostages, some of whom whimper. The one woman—one who doesn’t whimper—is the one Beck goes for. He approaches her and leans heavily over the table to take her chin in his armored hand. The glow from his palm puts her face in a ghastly light that she flinches away from.

“Did he tell you that he fucked his last assistant too?” Beck asks, with a sickly, too-intimate tone. He even retracts the faceplate of the Mark L to do so, and Peter sees Tony was right about the crazy eyes. "Do you think he'd prefer you to save him, or his old flame?" Beck asks Peter before turning back to his hostages. "Where has chivalry gone, am I right?" 

Fortunately for Peter, last night they'd talked about quite a few things in-between details of how Tony built the suits and how the other members of the team came to meet each other, and Virginia "Pepper" Potts was one of them. Peter drops back to the floor, right-side up, and prepares to accelerate his plan now that Beck is starting to reach the 'threatening hostages' level of aggravation.

Pepper interrupts, however, by spitting out her gag. It's all she can do with her hands behind her back like all the rest of them, and it looks like it hurts her jaw to even make the effort. Peter feels for her… she reminds him of Gwen more than anyone.

Her resistance does, however, take the attention conveniently off Peter and Tony, especially when she hocks one back and spits right on Beck's face. Peter darts over to Tony and makes sure Tony is lucid and not too banged up.

The helmet took the brunt of the damage, Peter observes quickly, even as Beck unties Pepper from her chair. Tony, for his part, looks frantically between Peter and Pepper, eyes expressive even as he cannot speak…perhaps _because_ he cannot speak.

Peter looks over his shoulder and realizes Beck is at the door, having ripped Tony's spare clothes off the faces of the erstwhile guards, along with the top three layers of each of their faces, if Peter knows his webs. Beck hands Pepper off to the guards even as she fights like hell, and he looks to be powering up the Mark L's gauntlets.

_That's not good._

Turning back to Tony, Peter forces himself to worry about one person at a time. He has to worry about Tony right now, and not just because he cares about him, but because Tony can help; Pepper can't. She's a great distraction, but all that long, straight blonde hair flashing in his peripheral vision takes Peter right back to thoughts of Gwen falling, falling, falling… and that's _before_ Beck blasts away at the doors to the elevator at the end of the hall and Peter realizes exactly where Miss Potts is being dragged.

A handful of seconds ticks away too fast, falling like sand through Peter's fingers, and it reminds him of every bomb he's had to defuse since he was fourteen. It reminds him of every time he has _failed_ , spectacularly, in the past seven years. It reminds him of every time he's been taught a lesson too late, like 'drinks at bars shouldn't be gritty', or 'go for the soft tissue', or 'don't underestimate a common shoplifter'. 

But Peter is a hero. And as he just pointed out (and as he deeply believes), he doesn't have to make the perfect call here. He just has to not do _nothing_.

He tugs at a bit of loose circuitry and some wires sticking out from under the impact-cushioning lining of Tony's helmet. 

Tony goes still and stops struggling to go after Pepper. His eyes go wide.

Peter's do too. They talked about this, about the failsafe for the early suits, before Tony had a good AI to get him out of his worst situations as he trained to be combat-ready. Once, he'd nearly suffocated inside the suit because he couldn't get it off. That's when Tony had started designing his suits to come apart if they experience catastrophic internal failures, such as a huge internal short. That design, Tony had explained, lasted up until he'd made the switch to nanotech and onboard AI.

Peter takes a look at the red, yellow, and blue wires twined around each other and makes an educated guess. _Blue_ , he thinks. _Tony's secret favorite color._

He shorts the blue wire, hoping it connects to the blue power source built into the chest of the armor, and watches in amazement as Tony gives a jolt and the armor comes apart around him, like a mold falls from around a cast statue.

Pepper screams and there's a clang and a scrabbling sound as she fights not to be thrown down the elevator shaft.

Peter gives Tony the gun from his waistband and then, as if he too is shedding his mold, Peter clicks off his two web-shooters and slaps them onto Tony's wrists.

"Go save her," he says. "You got this."

Tony moves faster than Peter thought possible, especially for someone with a head wound. _This_ , Peter thinks viciously, _is what selfishness can do for you._

Altruism—or more accurately: Beck's manic, oxymoronic blend of prescribed stoicism and beady-eyed obsession—may have gotten Beck places in life, but Tony's care for Pepper—in the here and now even after they've long since broken up—is what's getting Tony down the hallway after Beck like a shot.

Peter wouldn't trade the strength of that magnetism, the force that connects Tony to people like Pepper and Rhodey, and Peter to Tony, for the world.

And that's when the gauntlets come back out.

Peter fires his first repulsor at Beck, who has just finished blasting the elevator down off its cables, presumably the better to create a fiery pit to throw Pepper into.

 _Someone watched Iron Man 3,_ Peter notes grimly. He thinks this even as Beck shifts his attention back to Peter and away from Pepper, who slumps exhausted from her flailing against the armor, and Tony, who shoots one guard's knee before cracking the other on the side of the head with his own gun.

Beck takes the bait and comes zooming back into the conference room to make a harsh grab for Peter. _Perfect._

In response, he jumps high and dodges out of one of the holes in the roof. _And I will lead them on a merry chase,_ Peter quotes mentally.

A merry chase it is, too, with Peter playing a deadly sort of leapfrog over the many structural aberrations the hotel has recently been blessed with. Peter even adds a few of his own with the gauntlets. He’d feel bad, but that’s what insurance is for.

Also, anything to buy Tony some time.

The problem is, without his webs, Peter can’t outrun the Mark L for very long. He only lasts as long as he does against its speed because he’s more agile and presumably has more experience with the urban environment. This is _his_ city.

But Beck eventually catches him and when he does, he handles Peter in much the same way he handled Pepper, by grabbing for his chin. Peter’s molars grind together under the iron grip of the armor, as it squeezes.

 _It’s not enough,_ Peter realizes with dread. _It won’t be enough time._

Steeling himself for Beck’s reaction, Peter takes a page out of Miss Potts’s playbook. He spits right on Beck’s face and taunts him, still hoping for that 'distract, enrage, et cetera' plan to pan out. “Gonna throw me down the elevator shaft, too?” Peter grunts, straining against the armor’s grip.

Beck’s grin is unnerving. He doesn’t even bother to wipe Peter’s saliva off his face, and it makes a frisson of fear run all along the violin edge of Peter’s danger sense. “I’ll do you one better,” Beck vows.

 _Fuck._ He maybe leaned a bit too hard on the ‘enrage’ part of the plan.

And before he knows it, Peter is hurtling towards an ever-expanding blue and the city is dropping away beneath him.

Heights are a lot, lot scarier without his webs. Peter feels the unpleasant tingle as the tiny hairs that make up his spider grip saw up through his fingerprints. They’re not going to do much good, he knows, at this height and against the smooth, powerful assembled-nanite of the Mark L, but he has to try. Every second matters, if Tony is going to get all the hostages to safety and also, hopefully, be able to rescue Peter.

Or at least the first one. Peter could live with that.

The air whistles in Peter’s ears as they get higher and higher, and all Peter can think about is Tony. The sky is so blue today; it has that clear, cold winter feel to it and he’s freezing already as their altitude climbs. Peter wishes he could see the cabin from here, but it’s too far and too hidden. He’s glad Tony has a place like that, private, away from the paparazzi.

 _I could probably pop Beck’s eyes out,_ he thinks idly. The stupid idiot hasn’t put his faceplate back down yet. But it seems pointless, senselessly violent now. If Beck falls, Peter falls all the same.

He doesn’t want the last thing he ever does to be killing someone, not even a villain like Beck. Peter just wishes he wasn’t alone for this.

In a last-ditch effort, Peter curls in at the abs and gets his legs around Beck’s neck, which means Beck has to let go of Peter’s arms and chin to try and untangle him. Peter quickly pushes his sunglasses back against his face, wary of them falling off, and presses the button to unmute the AI within them.

“Faith?” he murmurs, even as Beck tries to pry Peter’s thighs apart. Peter grabs for any bit of the Mark L that he can reach, in case Beck manages it.

They’re really high up now, and Peter feels like he can see the whole city from here, even if that’s probably just him being sentimental.

“Can you tell Tony I’m sorry?” he asks the glasses.

“Of course, Peter. Let me just get a satellite uplink, and I’ll send that message for you.”

 _Good. That’s good,_ he thinks. Faith asks him something else, if he’d like to authorize something, and he says ‘yes’ without really parsing it. The air is too thin, he’s too high up, can’t breathe, can’t think. When Peter uses the last of his strength to look up at the Mark L, the faceplate is down again, and Beck has stopped pushing them higher, appearing to prefer the idea of ripping Peter away from the relative safety of his own grasp. It doesn’t really matter, Peter knows. They’re high enough.

Peter pretends, just for himself, that it’s Tony under that faceplate, Tony who he’s with right now. He tries his best to relax.

And with a manic shout, Beck pries Peter off him and throws him back to the earth.

***

Peter doesn’t remember falling, but he wakes up to a smell like a new car.

His body is encased in something that is, yes, blue in places but also red and gold. When he looks up, jolting with delayed panic about not having eyes on Beck, there is an intricate design of webs slung between the disaster-struck hotel to his left and the other building across the street. The readout of his HUD tells him that the tension points have been intricately designed to not allow for him to snap his neck due to whiplash, even with a fall like his, from such a great height. It's Clint's trapeze net all over again.

 _Gwen,_ Peter thinks. And under, around, and over that, one love built on top of another: _Tony._

Peter drops that last twenty feet or so onto the street, immediately into the midst of emergency personnel, and several freed hostages. “Beck?” Peter questions an older man who has a military air about him; he is impatiently having friction burns on his wrists treated.

“Got away, son.”

_Damn._

Then he hears Tony’s voice, talking animatedly over a woman’s. “Face it, this is not the worst PR you’ve ever had to deal with! They think I’m Spider-Man’s mentor, that’s amazing, totally gonna rehab my image. Also, I’m not your problem, I’m his problem, so truly, you can tell Ross to eat my-”

“Tony?”

Pepper doesn’t even try to hold Tony back, when they see it’s Peter. Tony sweeps him into a hug and presses his forehead to the strange, shifty metal of Peter’s… mask? suit? He supposes that this thing—though it’s all one piece, apparently—is a suit, much like the one still laying abandoned in a gym locker in Brooklyn.

“I, uh. I don’t know how to retract the-”

But of course, it does it as soon as Peter says ‘retract’. Tony presses their foreheads together again, this time skin-to-skin. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Pete.” He punctuates his completely ridiculous request with a kiss, right there in front of everyone. Peter sinks into it, careful of both of their wounds and bruises.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. A camera flash goes off as Tony pulls back.

Tony reaches out and shoves the guy’s camera to the ground without looking away. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Peter swallows hard and steps back. Tony is wearing his own set of sunglasses, like the ones Peter had, but with red lenses instead of a muted blue-purple. That probably means he got Peter’s last message. _Awkward._

“Well,” he jokes, “I did lose your sunglasses. They probably took a quite literal leap of Faith somewhere between here and however many thousand feet up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony tells him, and he kisses Peter again. 

It goes on for a long, syrupy moment; if Peter’s secret identity is gonna be utterly trashed, he wants it to be worth it. 

When both of their hands have stopped shaking long enough for them to part, Tony speaks again. He sounds like he’s covering for a bone-deep anxiety, an adrenaline dump that he’s not used to dealing with yet. Peter knows the feeling, so he doesn’t blink when Tony asks him, “Did you like the acronym?”

“The… acronym?”

“Yeah. F-A-I-T-H,” Tony spells out. “Fuck Acting, I’m The Hero.”

His heart still pounding, Peter wraps his arms around Tony’s neck, and mirrors his grin. Over Tony’s shoulder, Pepper watches with her hand covering her mouth and a soft look on her face. Peter looks Tony straight in the eye.

“I love it,” he says. “I love it so much.”

***

Summer:

Tony isn’t there when Peter gets off the plane at LAX, and he said he would be, this morning.

 _He really does need an assistant,_ Peter thinks with good humor.

However, there’s a broad man with brown, curly hair and a put-upon expression waiting just past baggage claim, with a little sign that says ‘Parker (Stark)’. Peter finds that funny, and a little thrilling because to a casual observer it might sound like he’s married, rather than just in possession of an extremely common last name that requires specificity in situations like this.

Peter bounds up to the man with his luggage in tow and sticks out his hand. “Hello, I’m Peter Parker.”

“I’m Happy.”

 _Uh… okay._ “Good for you?”

“Jesus Chri- okay. This way, please.”

They ride in silence after Peter puts his one bag in the trunk, and Peter takes in the sight of the highway, excitement balling in his gut. It was a long plane ride, even in first class.

(And he still doesn’t really like heights.)

By the time they get to Malibu, he and the driver haven’t exchanged too much conversation, but Peter _does_ learn that the man’s name is Mr. Hogan, and that no he doesn’t live in the mansion, but yes he will be driving Peter and Tony around because someone got a hold of the information that Peter would be in the LA area for the greater part of the summer, and Spider-Man and Tony Stark in one place is just too much of a draw to be anything but a huge security risk.

“Don’t worry about it too much, kid,” Mr. Hogan tells him. “The beach is private and he’s been talking about seeing you non-stop, I doubt he’ll let you leave the house much. You’ll be safe there.”

Peter watches in the rearview as Mr. Hogan then appears to replay what he’s just said, looking faintly ill for a moment. Peter thrills, smiling out the window. _That’s what I’m counting on,_ Peter thinks.

The house rises up, white and modern and striking, in Peter’s vision as they approach, but all he cares about is the inside. Well, not even _the_ inside, but _what’s_ inside. 

(Who.)

Stepping through the front doors and dropping his bag in the foyer, Peter walks into a magical place filled to the brim with flowers. In the middle of it all, is Tony. He looks a little sheepish.

“You’re, what, reliving your glory days with a scene from one of your early films?” Peter teases. He gets closer and knows that a smile is blooming on his own face.

“Nah. Well, actually maybe technically yes, but I forget. All I know is that it was either this or a giant bunny.”

Peter hums. “Well, I like flowers alright, I guess,” he says sweetly. Then he lets his look turn mischievous, lascivious. “I like giant things too.”

“Oh my god.”

Peter does his best to pull Tony down right there in the living room; there’s a rather plush rug. But Tony insists on giving him the grand tour first, apparently. “I have a really _giant_ lab that I think you ought to see first,” he argues, and so Peter goes willingly.

It’s a really great lab. Peter really looks forward to seeing what all Tony has been working on in it, now that the movie is done and people know that Tony’s the real deal. It’s gotta be nerve-wracking, bearing the brunt of all that celebrity—along with Peter—so that Natasha, and Sam, and Steve, and so on don’t have to.

(Not that Peter thinks Tony particularly minds, especially where Steve is concerned.)

Peter lets Tony show him the equipment, and he makes mental notes as to all the things he wants to try out or ask questions about later. It’s gonna be another long night, he predicts, just like their first night together at the cabin, talking until their throats hurt and they’d both felt that strong, humming bond of reassurance and understanding emanating from the other.

But for now, Peter sits on the roomy lab couch that separates the huge, underground lab from a more open space that houses a partially assembled classic car.

Tony sits down beside him. He touches a wave of Peter’s hair, which has grown longer in the past six months. “Missed you, kid,” he says.

Peter leans into the hand touching him, trapping Tony there with him with his hand against the back of the couch. “Missed you too.”

At no point does Tony try to get away, which makes Peter smile harder.

“Wanna go surfing?”

 _Pfft._ “Absolutely not.”

“And why not?” Tony asks, even as Peter moves to climb into his lap. He looks up at Peter with an expression like he’s been waiting here, on this couch, for Peter to climb into his lap, his whole life. “If you wanna stay in, I can order a fancy dinner. I can even get a chef to come to-”

“Just want you,” Peter explains, as simply and sincerely as he can. Tony’s hands settle on Peter’s hips and Peter squirms until Tony’s fingertips are accordingly snuck up underneath his waistband, inching back. “Besides, I really don’t think I could keep my balance on a surfboard, right now.”

This makes Tony’s eyebrows quirk. “You have excellent balance.”

Peter grins and stretches until Tony’s hands go a little further down the back of Peter’s pants, squeezing. Then he squirms so they go a little further still. “I’m a little distracted.”

He can tell the moment Tony touches the base of the plug inside him. “Oh, _fuck_ , Peter-”

“I know, right?” he replies, and it’s the way Tony touches him then, left hand on the plug, right hand coming around to splay possessively over Peter’s abs that gets him half-hard.

From there, it’s simple enough to coax Tony into laying him down on the couch. “You wore this on the plane? Jesus _Christ_ , you must be- oh, _honey,_ you waited so long for me, didn’t you?”

Peter hums and lets Tony strip him out of his jeans and underwear. Tony even helpfully pushes up on his T-shirt for him, though it’s only to tease at the sensitive cage of Peter’s ribs, to touch at his jumping belly. “It’s a seven-hour flight, nearly. Plus I waited six months.”

“Seven _hours,_ ” Tony echoes faux-sympathetically. “Poor baby, and you went through TSA with this? You’re lucky you didn’t get cavity searched, kid.” Tony gives him a little smile even as he drops a kiss onto Peter’s mouth.

Peter can’t help the little moan he pours into it at the way the hem of Tony’s shirt brushes over his wet cock when he leans into Peter. It’s a barely-there sensation, but he knows he’s gonna be going off like a firehose soon, just from all the anticipatory build-up. “I’m lucky in a lot of ways,” Peter manages to get out.

“Yeah, we are.”

They just look at each other for a moment, Tony thumbing over Peter’s forehead while he rests his arm above Peter’s head on the end of the couch. Peter feels up the muscle of Tony’s back and vows to himself that Tony _will_ get just as unclothed as he does, this time.

He even does the little nod to himself that makes it a promise, before he remembers that Tony is looking right at him. “You okay, talking to yourself?” Tony asks him with a little, wry twist to his mouth.

“Perfect.”

“Yeah you are, wanna come?” Tony follows-up, leaning on the arm above Peter’s head and gripping Peter’s cock in his other hand. He starts jerking him off in short, hard, _glorious_ strokes. “Seven hours is a lot for this hair-trigger.”

“Shut up, shut up- ohhhhh. God. Yeah,” Peter pants. “There was turbulence.”

Tony snickers and smooches at Peter’s jaw. “Of course there was, with your luck.” He stops, but only just long enough to help Peter with his shirt and then to take his own off when Peter pouts about it. Then he kneels up under Peter’s spread legs and goes back to touching him again, this time adding little taps and tugs of the plug to the mix.

Peter’s toes curl.

“Next time, I’ll put you on a private jet. We have the summit in Germany in a month; I’m gonna make them put in a bed somewhere and induct you into the mile high club in _style-_ ”

Peter’s laughing when he starts to come the first time, not expecting it to rush up through him just from the combination of the plug pushing a little too deep at the same moment that Tony’s palm tightens on the slick head of Peter’s cock. 

“So good for me, sweetheart,” Tony is saying, and then Peter’s over the edge between one moment and the next. It’s the good kind of falling.

It’s just a little one, just something that makes him blink and sigh, but Tony groans and sinks down to lap at Peter’s navel and the drizzle of come there like the feeling cascaded over and got to _him_.

Peter loves that. He wants that… he wants it for himself. He needs Tony in him, like, yesterday.

(Six months ago.)

“Hey,” he says softly, getting Tony’s attention back from where Tony is pressing it into his collarbone and up, behind his ear, with affectionate nuzzles.

“Hey.”

“I know you have this whole thing about wanting to edge me into oblivion before we do the dick-in-ass bit, but…” Peter trails off, suddenly vulnerable for all his Gen Z bravado. “I really just want you to feel good too. Could you just, maybe… armor up and…”

Tony kisses over Peter’s eyebrow, soothing, when Peter can’t say anymore.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

Peter exhales, relieved. “Okay, okay, cool.” He smiles. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> :D


End file.
